


Severances

by HenryMercury



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Everything is not better, Gen, Kyoshi's aggressive avatar counsel, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 18:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6295459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HenryMercury/pseuds/HenryMercury
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Roku does not spare the Fire Lord.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Severances

**Author's Note:**

> Because of [this](http://henrymercury.tumblr.com/post/141292109197/fell-dragon-domain-fatherlordzukoz-do-you).

When he was fifteen, Roku met a murderer. Sozin dragged him by the collar down to the dungeons to look at him—this man who had taken eight victims from among the noble classes, from the Minister for Trade to his own seven year old niece. The murderer's name was Chan. He was sinewy, of average height, had long black hair and dark golden eyes. He could have been anyone off the street—and yet if all the accusations were true, he was anything but ordinary. A cold killer. Made of something altogether different from Roku, who couldn't be cruel or unfeeling if he tried.

Chan's face was unremarkable back then, and he can't picture it at all now. What he remembers clearly is that Chan claimed to hear voices. _Kill him_ , those voices said. _Kill her_. _You have to do it. You must._

The woman in Roku's head says she is no such voice. ( _Would you be more inclined to take my advice if I were a symptom of your insanity?_ she has said at her most exasperated moments. _Because at this point I'm willing to be whatever kind of advisor you find most compelling._ ) Roku knows too much of history to doubt that she is his Avatar predecessor. Kyoshi. Kyoshi who guided the world through over two centuries, who has a longer track record than Roku can comprehend.

Kyoshi is not like Chan's demons.

She says many of the same things, though.

 _He has changed irreparably,_ Kyoshi insists. It is by now an old argument, and Roku has to argue with so many other people that by the time he's free to sit down and argue with himself he'd really rather not. Kyoshi seldom lets him off the hook. _Sozin has tasted new power and he will never give it up. Prevent him from changing the face of the world irreparably in his image._

Roku has only had a few days at home since an extended trip to the western Earth Kingdom; the first was spent sleeping off the exhaustion of a week of hard earthbending relief work, the second was spend landscaping the garden for Ta Min, and then for their neighbours, so that the drainage was better. Today, the third day, has mostly been spent allowing his wife to thank him for the previous day's labour, and letting his sore muscles rest.

He departs tomorrow to meet with a new guru at the northern air temple, however, so he has done all the resting he can; he must go to see Sozin before leaving the Fire Nation again. He cannot forget what he has seen—Earth Kingdom cities with red flags shrouding them. He cannot treat it as less than urgent and he cannot give Sozin the benefit here because there is no longer any doubt.

 _Do it now_. Kyoshi's voice, her will, is insistent as a headache, a firm aching pressure against the inside of his skull. It's something more than that, as well. It grips his conscience, pulls it several ways at once. _End him. He has proven his own guilt._

"Today is not the day for that," Roku tells her as he pulls on his robes, ready to go and confront Sozin. Ready to _speak_ with him. Firm words, from friend to friend.

 _Words will not be enough_ , Kyoshi warns.

"What do the others say about this, anyway?" With some effort, Roku pushes Kyoshi aside and reaches further into their shared past. The other voices awaken, once at a time.

 _You can't do nothing,_ Kuruk insists. _You can't just hope for the best; you have to make it happen_.

Kuruk can't tell Roku what 'the best' is, though. Kuruk's fight is against the one who killed his beloved. Roku's fight is against the one he loves.

 _Duty_ , says Yangchen. Her voice is deep like Kyoshi's but less solid. Her words are like low notes from a flute. Gusts of wind filling the twists and turns of high-ceilinged corridors. It's strong, but there is something hollow inside it. _You must put aside your own needs, your own feelings, for the sake of the world_.

Roku implores her for a glimpse of anything that might convince him she's ever had to deal with feelings like the ones he grapples with now. Yangchen does not oblige, and Kyoshi takes centre stage again.

"Everyone's else's advice is so abstract," Roku complains. "I'm not saying I like what you tell me, but at least you offer a solution." Having trained and worked with a great many earthbenders over the years, Roku recognises Kyoshi's head-on approach as characteristic of her place of origin. Still, there is a difference between refusing to back down from a fight and showing up to one with intent to kill. Roku is a grown man but with the centuries of cumulative experience his past lives have, he still feels distinctly young to be taking up this responsibility.

He always feels even younger the instant he sees Sozin.

 _Speak to him_ , Kyoshi says, more softly now that she knows Roku is listening to her. _Look for signs that he may change his course. But do not invent them just to avoid the implications of finding none._

Sometimes it's nice just to be told what he should do, one way or the other. He has grown accustomed to leadership; he has taken up the many tasks of the Avatar and his conscience has been a good guide. But to depose Sozin, to actually _kill_ him, Roku would have to become something different. Not a leader among men but one who stands above them, separate, an instrument of enforcement. Warier of love than of cruelty.

 _It gets easier to bear_ , offers Kyoshi, and she sounds so kind in this moment that Roku believes her, begins to believe that what she's asking of him might not be so impossible. That if the critical moment does come he might actually be able to survive it.

Roku wonders whether Chan's voices told him that it would get easier too. Maybe that was the problem.

x

Sozin _is_ irreparably changed. He speaks with the same mouth that once smiled at Roku, but Roku cannot imagine it forming that expression anymore. Roku has changed too—learned not to trip over his own feet, learned to move water and earth and air with hands that once only conjured fire. Sozin has learned not to let his eyes see anything he does not want them to, not to let his ears hear or his mind consider ideas contrary to his own.

Or is it just that Roku has finally learned not to give, consciously or otherwise, under the pressure that Sozin exerts?

The fight was never going to stop at words.

"I'm sparing you, Sozin," Roku thunders, the force of Kyoshi and Kuruk and Yangchen and all the others behind the words. In the Avatar state, he can feel their strength in his limbs, their resolve in his mind, their anger in his veins. "I'm letting you go in the name of our past friendship."

"In the name of what?" Sozin spits. "Friendship? A friendship that _you_ ruined? No, _Avatar_ , you're letting me go because you're too weak to do anything else with me. Too weak to seize greatness—and too weak to end this battle like a man."

Roku's conscience stirs as he raises his hand, but it is a mere branch snapping in the fury of the storm inside him.

"You're wrong, Sozin," he says. Roku has always fought _too much_ like a man, especially in his dealings with the Fire Lord. Too much with his heart, too much with his human hopes and desires. The white light of Raava glows within him and for once, he lets it expand until all those feelings are dulled, blinded.

Ice seems like the most expedient option. Razor darts of it fly through Sozin's body so quickly and cleanly it's as though they meet no resistance at all on their way. The Fire Lord's body hangs mounted on a pillar of earth for all to see. When the wind beneath Roku's feet dies down he falls to his knees in front of the stone. The numbing light recedes, and he is as alone in himself as he ever is. He shuffles backwards when drips begin to land on the top of his head.

He uses the last of his energy to send a flame up to engulf the body. He knows how his friend would have wanted to die.

 _You did the right thing_ , Kyoshi says. Her voice is warm, comforting like a strong hand on Roku's shoulder. It is far from enough.

"I did _some_ thing," is all Roku knows for sure.

x

The memories he lived out first in the Avatar state gain clarity upon reflection. The presence of his past lives, of Raava, were sedatives which have now worn off. Now he relives everything he has done over and over in excruciating detail. Roku does not want to be near his wife or anyone he cares for so he retreats first to a secluded spot on the mountainside, and then to a tavern, where he searches for an adequate replacement sedative.

He wakes, not from sleep but from some other haze, aching and foggy, days later. He has missed his appointment with the guru.

And there is a new Fire Lord.

Sozin did not have any siblings—Roku was the closest thing to a brother he had. Sozin's first marriage never produced any children and the son born of his second union is still young, too young to take the throne in Roku's opinion. At Azulon's age, Roku's knees still knocked together hard and frequently enough that the insides of the kneecaps were soft and brown with bruises. Azulon is old enough to think he is a man; young enough not to recognise that he is still a child.

The boy relishes in his new authority. Roku visits him, stands before a throne cast in dancing blue. Sozin's silhouette laughs, and though his voice is too freshly broken to be Sozin's, his words might as well be.

"Give back the colonies? Why would I surrender what is mine? I'll take more if I want—and I _do_ want. What can you do, Avatar? Murder me after murdering my father? You can't kill your way through this entire nation."

 _He's right_ , says a voice in Roku's head. It's not Kyoshi (no, Kyoshi suggests only half in jest that he try). It isn't quite Kuruk or Yangchen either, and no spirits from lives he led before Yangchen have stirred to advise him before. This voice is too familiar to be a stranger's. And yet it is strange. It sounds almost like his own, as good a reflection as a cracked mirror.

x

Roku wakes sweating from a nightmare only to find that the sky is filled with smoke. His home quakes around him. He clambers out of his bed and runs to Ta Min's on the other side of the house. She's surprised to see him rousing her—there's even the hint of a smile there, if Roku's old eyes aren't colluding with the darkness around them. It's been a long time since he could make her happy, could make anyone happy, could play any part in happiness whatsoever.

He hurries Ta Min out of the house and trips on through the vegetable garden to ensure that the neighbours are also responding to the danger. As molten rock streams down the mountainside, glaring orange, he turns his attention to it instead.

 _Should have taken the time to master lavabending_ , Kyoshi tuts.

Roku has long stopped listening to her anyway. For years her every comment has been dry and irritable, well aware that she will not be obeyed. Roku wonders whether it's just the fate of the immediate predecessor to stay tuned in to their successor's life more acutely than those behind. He wonders whether she'd switch him off it she could. Maybe the options for a past spirit are _watch_ or _fall into eternal dusty sleep_ , and she just isn't ready to be done yet.

Kyoshi had two hundred and thirty years in which to live and fight her fill. Roku has not had half so many and he is already quite taken with the allure of letting dust bury him.

Ash makes a good start. He takes a deep breath of smoke, coughs and splutters and pushes on up the mountain to try and stop the flows from destroying all the buildings and streets and gardens around him—everything that the still-living will need when they go forward. He does everything he can to save the town, but he does not look for an escape route for himself.

x

When he is six years old, Aang sits restlessly in meditation. He'd thought his airbender training would involve more movement than this. He's been sitting in the same place all morning. There's a fly that keeps landing on his nose.

"Pssst."

Aang cracks an eye open and sees someone hiding in the bushes to his right. It's the monk named Gyatso. He smiles brightly as though he knows what Aang is thinking. Gyatso gives a little wave, and it feels like an invitation. An invitation to what, Aang can't know—but if he's trying to steal him away from meditation then it must be some sort of mischief. Whenever he's seen Gyatso around the man has been laughing, or grinning broadly. The way he smiles at Aang now makes it seem like they're already friends, like they have been for ages, even though Aang's just a kid and Gyatso is an old man.

Aang's face opens up to grin back at the monk when something strange twists in his gut. It's like the feeling of having eaten poison berries, but it hurts on a different level, too. It's like he's sick to his stomach with pure sadness. Aang has never felt worse in his life. He looks at Gyatso and the feeling only intensifies. He doesn't know where it's coming from, but it only goes away when he closes his eyes back up, straightens his back properly and clears his mind of the thought that maybe the monk could become his friend.

The less time Aang spends making friends, the less the pain flares up. He figures this must be why so many of the air nomad teachers aim for detachment. If attachment hurts this much, he doesn't know why anyone would choose it.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also on [tumblr](http://henrymercury.tumblr.com/).


End file.
